* More than 500 people have been evacuated from two towns seriously affected by powerful earthquakes in the Koryak area in the north of the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia's Far East over the last two days
* Tent cities have been set up for people affected by the earthquakes, emergency services said; evacuees will have to brave temperatures of well below zero
* Around 1,000 people gathered at Vladimir Lenin's mausoleum on Red Square to mark the anniversary of the Bolshevik leader's birth
* Russian military planes flew undetected through the U.S. zone of the Arctic Ocean to Canada during recent military exercises, a senior Air Force commander said
* Russia will join the World Trade Organization in 2006, Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said
* Four Chinese students have been attacked in the central Russian city of Kostroma, a local police source said
